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Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | VOL. 171, NO. 34 | Tuesday October 12, 2010
InDEX
2 · News Digest
4 · Opinion
7 · Lifestyle
14 · Sudoku
16 · Classifieds
20 · Sports
Heartbreaking: USC
football loses for the second
week in a row. PAGE 20
Daniel Wang | Daily Trojan
This university life
Radio personality Ira Glass spoke at Bovard Auditorium Monday about his radio show, This American Life. The performance was part of
the celebration of the upcoming inauguration of President C.L. Max Nikias. For additional coverage, turn to the lifestyle section, page 7.
By arlene washington
Daily Trojan
In an effort to provide students with a basic under-standing
of how to handle and analyze data, the USC
Department of Mathematics now offers a new minor in
statistics,
“Whether you’re going to be a journalist or a math-ematician,
it’s becoming necessary to be able to have a
background in analyzing the information in your field,”
said Gary Rosen, chairman and a professor of mathe-matics
at USC. “Statistics is really the science of the fu-ture.”
Rosen said he was driven to create the minor after
reading a New York Times article on the future of sta-tistics.
“The article focuses on how statistics is becoming to
be more and more of a useful skill that is increasing in
demand for employers,” Rosen said. “With the world ex-panding
with technology every day, Internet-age statis-ticians
are needed to work with large data sets for many
popular companies.”
Statistics is the process of making an estimate on cer-tain
numbers associated with a population based on a
sample. The program is designed for students who want
to acquire a basic understanding of modern statistics
and will teach students how to handle and analyze large
data sets.
The interdisciplinary minor is available to students
pursuing any major. There is one math prerequisite, and
it requires eight units of math and another eight units
USC College
establishes new
statistics minor
Students can pair the statistics minor with a
major from any department at the university.
| see stats, page 6 |
By kira brekke
Daily Trojan
Starting fall 2011, USC master of
communication and public adminis-tration
degrees will be offered online
to meet an increased demand from
students.
Students enrolled in the online
program will have access to the
same faculty who teach on campus
and will develop online virtual com-munities
while still partaking in the
Trojan Family, said Jack Knott, dean
of the School of Policy Planning and
Development.
“The online program offers the
opportunity to provide a quality,
state-of-the-art education to the
21st-century students,” Knott said.
“[The program] fits students’ learn-ing
style through the Internet and
social networking and it fits stu-dents’
lifestyle of juggling careers,
family and education.”
Founded in 1995, Embanet has
Online
master’s
available
The master’s degrees will be
offered to students who cannot
study on the USC campus.
| see deg res, page 3 |
By kira brekke
Daily Trojan
The Department of Performance
Venues has experienced serious
understaffing problems after the
opening of the much-anticipated
Ronald Tutor Campus Center, ac-cording
to department officials.
Within the entire division —
which manages Bovard Auditorium,
Ground Zero Performance Café,
the new campus center and
other outdoor events — there are
only six full-time staff members
managing more than 400 students
and more than 2,000 events per
semester, according to Director
of Performance Venues Brandon
Operchuck.
“We’re feeling people’s frustra-tion
because we’re slow to respond
to requests and telephone calls,”
Operchuck said.
Before, USC’s Commons was not
staffed enough to indicate the de-mand
the department was going
to experience with the addition of
the campus center, Operchuck said.
Staff members are scrambling for
enough time to get everything done.
“We knew it was going to be
big. But the demand of the build-ing
clearly overshadowed what the
expectation was and what it would
take to operate. We’re working
hard to get to the point of appro-priately
serving our community,”
Operchuck said.
The understaffing dilemma pos-es
two problems: The department is
weeks behind on its paperwork, and
many events have to be rebooked
because of a sudden change in the
capacity limits implemented by the
fire marshal.
As part of signing off on the cam-pus
center, the fire marshal low-ered
the anticipated capacity from
1,283 people to around 980. What
might seem like a small change,
Operchuck said, forced the depart-ment
to reconfigure scheduled
events to abide by the new limits.
“For the first couple of weeks, all
the phone calls we received were
not about new events, but it was
more about working with people
and making their already-planned
events happen and dealing with
their frustration,” Operchuck said.
The most demanding jobs are
understaffed, according to part-time
staff member and lighting di-rector
Steve Farquhar, a senior ma-joring
in computer science.
Even with the understaffed of-fice,
both Farquhar and Operchuck
said the part-time student employ-ees
come to the job eager and ener-gized
and that their desire and pas-sion
to help students is evident.
“These 400 students are bril-liant.
They’re USC students, they’re
really smart kids and they work re-ally
hard and they’ve given us all
they’ve got,” Operchuck said.
The appropriate amount of time
needed to train these students is
missing, however, which limits the
amount of responsibilities new em-ployees
can take on, Operchuck
said.
“We can’t be asking students to
work 40-, 50-, 60-hour weeks. More
[student employees] requires more
management, more paperwork and
all of those things require some-one
to really be managing them,”
Operchuck said. “Our full-time staff
Department struggles to staff new performance venues
The Performance Venues
department has six full-time
staff members working.
| see Venues, page 6 |
Chloe Stepney | Daily Trojan
Make it work · Drake Smith, a sophomore majoring in jazz
studies, hands out programs to attendees at Bovard Auditorium.
s t u d e n t s
TALKBACK
Every TUESDAY.
FREE FOOD, AND DISCUSSION BEGINS at noon.
At the USC “Fishbowl” @ University Religious Center
“TODAY: Every Child Left Behind?”

Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | VOL. 171, NO. 34 | Tuesday October 12, 2010
InDEX
2 · News Digest
4 · Opinion
7 · Lifestyle
14 · Sudoku
16 · Classifieds
20 · Sports
Heartbreaking: USC
football loses for the second
week in a row. PAGE 20
Daniel Wang | Daily Trojan
This university life
Radio personality Ira Glass spoke at Bovard Auditorium Monday about his radio show, This American Life. The performance was part of
the celebration of the upcoming inauguration of President C.L. Max Nikias. For additional coverage, turn to the lifestyle section, page 7.
By arlene washington
Daily Trojan
In an effort to provide students with a basic under-standing
of how to handle and analyze data, the USC
Department of Mathematics now offers a new minor in
statistics,
“Whether you’re going to be a journalist or a math-ematician,
it’s becoming necessary to be able to have a
background in analyzing the information in your field,”
said Gary Rosen, chairman and a professor of mathe-matics
at USC. “Statistics is really the science of the fu-ture.”
Rosen said he was driven to create the minor after
reading a New York Times article on the future of sta-tistics.
“The article focuses on how statistics is becoming to
be more and more of a useful skill that is increasing in
demand for employers,” Rosen said. “With the world ex-panding
with technology every day, Internet-age statis-ticians
are needed to work with large data sets for many
popular companies.”
Statistics is the process of making an estimate on cer-tain
numbers associated with a population based on a
sample. The program is designed for students who want
to acquire a basic understanding of modern statistics
and will teach students how to handle and analyze large
data sets.
The interdisciplinary minor is available to students
pursuing any major. There is one math prerequisite, and
it requires eight units of math and another eight units
USC College
establishes new
statistics minor
Students can pair the statistics minor with a
major from any department at the university.
| see stats, page 6 |
By kira brekke
Daily Trojan
Starting fall 2011, USC master of
communication and public adminis-tration
degrees will be offered online
to meet an increased demand from
students.
Students enrolled in the online
program will have access to the
same faculty who teach on campus
and will develop online virtual com-munities
while still partaking in the
Trojan Family, said Jack Knott, dean
of the School of Policy Planning and
Development.
“The online program offers the
opportunity to provide a quality,
state-of-the-art education to the
21st-century students,” Knott said.
“[The program] fits students’ learn-ing
style through the Internet and
social networking and it fits stu-dents’
lifestyle of juggling careers,
family and education.”
Founded in 1995, Embanet has
Online
master’s
available
The master’s degrees will be
offered to students who cannot
study on the USC campus.
| see deg res, page 3 |
By kira brekke
Daily Trojan
The Department of Performance
Venues has experienced serious
understaffing problems after the
opening of the much-anticipated
Ronald Tutor Campus Center, ac-cording
to department officials.
Within the entire division —
which manages Bovard Auditorium,
Ground Zero Performance Café,
the new campus center and
other outdoor events — there are
only six full-time staff members
managing more than 400 students
and more than 2,000 events per
semester, according to Director
of Performance Venues Brandon
Operchuck.
“We’re feeling people’s frustra-tion
because we’re slow to respond
to requests and telephone calls,”
Operchuck said.
Before, USC’s Commons was not
staffed enough to indicate the de-mand
the department was going
to experience with the addition of
the campus center, Operchuck said.
Staff members are scrambling for
enough time to get everything done.
“We knew it was going to be
big. But the demand of the build-ing
clearly overshadowed what the
expectation was and what it would
take to operate. We’re working
hard to get to the point of appro-priately
serving our community,”
Operchuck said.
The understaffing dilemma pos-es
two problems: The department is
weeks behind on its paperwork, and
many events have to be rebooked
because of a sudden change in the
capacity limits implemented by the
fire marshal.
As part of signing off on the cam-pus
center, the fire marshal low-ered
the anticipated capacity from
1,283 people to around 980. What
might seem like a small change,
Operchuck said, forced the depart-ment
to reconfigure scheduled
events to abide by the new limits.
“For the first couple of weeks, all
the phone calls we received were
not about new events, but it was
more about working with people
and making their already-planned
events happen and dealing with
their frustration,” Operchuck said.
The most demanding jobs are
understaffed, according to part-time
staff member and lighting di-rector
Steve Farquhar, a senior ma-joring
in computer science.
Even with the understaffed of-fice,
both Farquhar and Operchuck
said the part-time student employ-ees
come to the job eager and ener-gized
and that their desire and pas-sion
to help students is evident.
“These 400 students are bril-liant.
They’re USC students, they’re
really smart kids and they work re-ally
hard and they’ve given us all
they’ve got,” Operchuck said.
The appropriate amount of time
needed to train these students is
missing, however, which limits the
amount of responsibilities new em-ployees
can take on, Operchuck
said.
“We can’t be asking students to
work 40-, 50-, 60-hour weeks. More
[student employees] requires more
management, more paperwork and
all of those things require some-one
to really be managing them,”
Operchuck said. “Our full-time staff
Department struggles to staff new performance venues
The Performance Venues
department has six full-time
staff members working.
| see Venues, page 6 |
Chloe Stepney | Daily Trojan
Make it work · Drake Smith, a sophomore majoring in jazz
studies, hands out programs to attendees at Bovard Auditorium.
s t u d e n t s
TALKBACK
Every TUESDAY.
FREE FOOD, AND DISCUSSION BEGINS at noon.
At the USC “Fishbowl” @ University Religious Center
“TODAY: Every Child Left Behind?”